Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 31

It took me a while before I found out that a new fansub group called Ni-paa~ released this episode on Animesuki. I’ve been so used to the fact that Tokyo Toshokan lists all available fansubs that I didn’t realize that there are sometimes exceptions. I never understood what was so great about this Ni-paa~, by the way. It’s just a random word to sound cute, same with the “Uguu~” and all other variations. The only phrase I’ve found that actually worked was Akazukin’s Zukkyun, because it actually had a deep meaning in her backstory. Anyway, about the episode: I loved it. This is exactly the kind of Higurashi that I originally fell in love with, and finally this anime picks up its mystery-roots again, and it starts introducing and answering questions again. I originally thought that Rika was to be proven wrong, by some kind of miraculous act from Satoko, but that turned out completely wrong. I originally thought that this would be a Rika-arc, but guess what: Satoko is the actual main character. Rika plays the part of the vital character, while Oishi is the main side-character in this arc. Rika’s going to have to wait till the next arc to be proven wrong. After a long recap of the previous episode, she realizes that her murderers are about to kill her, so she hides Satoko from them. The murderers turn out to be the guys in uniform, the people working under the Sonozaki-family, but now under the control of the real killer. They were after something in her stomach. Satoko runs into her after everything is over, though she didn’t wait long enough for the killers to go away, so they notice her. They start to chase her, until the bridge, from which she falls, just like Keiichi in the third arc. And yes, this in fact means that she survived the Hinamizawa-disaster. To make things even better, she doesn’t lose her consciousness after falling, and wanders into Hinamizawa, just after the great disaster took place, and people are busy to collect the bodies. Satoko then wanders to the school, in which the entire population of the village seems to have been dumped. They all look like they’ve been brutally murdered from the inside, or that they were in the middle of awakening from the disease at the point of death. Satoko then goes into a mental shock, and gets taken to the hospital in a nearby town. Oishi (who happened to be away at the time of the disaster) then goes to visit her, and quickly sees that she doesn’t respond to anybody. He tells her something interesting, though. Rena’s hat was found, bloodied, quite a distance away from Hinamizawa. Oishi suspects that Satoko knows some key elements to this mystery, though he leaves her alone. However, when he mentions Rika’s name, she reacts for a split second. The nurse says that this is just a subconscious reaction, and that she didn’t really awaken or anything. She looks worried, though. Especially a close-up of her hints at her significance in this scene. Oishi then returns to the police station, where he talks with a colleague about another one of his colleagues who disappeared. I suspect that that’s the guy who got shot at the previous episode. When he hears that the guy was about to do stuff relating Furude Rika, Oishi suddenly remembers that Satoko and Rika lived in the same house. He then realizes that Satoko didn’t turn out the way she did because of the Hinamizawa-disaster, but because of the things that happened to Rika. Okay, this isn’t exactly right, but this does make him go back to the hospital. He’s too late, though. The nurse seemed to work for the killer as well, and the killer’s henchmen have started to appear in the hospital. Satoko actually awakens, and imagines Rena, running away from the same henchmen, and getting killed, with her hat being the only thing that remains. She gets killed before Oishi reaches her, though. Probably via an overdose of medicine. The episode ends with Oishi screaming because of this loss. The most interesting thing in this episode for me was definitely Rena escaping, because it ruthlessly shattered the theory I’ve been having that Rena was able to survive in the sixth arc because her disease was rendered useless. This arc suggests that the sixth arc wasn’t the only one in which she received Takano’s scrapbooks. We’ve never seen her much in this episode, but we just don’t know what happened to her, and she may have been doing quite some interesting things while the attention was focused on other characters. In fact, this could have happened in the second, third and fifth arc as well, simply because we don’t get any information about what happened to the individual victims. The big question is now, why did Rena survive? Now the following is just a theory, but could it be that Rena knew quite a bit about what was going on in the different arcs? What if the sixth arc was the only exception for this, whn she was too much distracted by her disease which awakened too early? She managed to survive back then because her disease was indeed already cured, but what if she just saw all of her friends going berserk and dying, right before her eyes? I can imagine that this would cause an even bigger trauma than with Satoko in this episode, and that she quite simply forgot all about it, which is why the killer let her live: she didn’t pose a threat anymore. The next episode should really start the second season off, where the final two arcs will be told in nineteen episodes. Unfortunately, I’ve already been spoiled about the identity of the real killer and the role of Rika’s companion, but there remain enough questions that still need to be answered, especially the whats, hows and whys of everything. Arc 8 should deal with the whats and hows, while arc 9 (in the anime, not the game) should deal with the hows, if I recall correctly. Overall, I do like the past arc. Not only did it introduce some new questions, and answered others, it was a good build-up to the next arc. We now know a bit of what’s going on inside Rika’s head, and that she’s pretty much in despair, and that she doesn’t want to do anything. Let’s see if she still thinks that way in the next one. :)]]>

Mononoke – 04

About the only thing that I was afraid of for this series was that there wouldn’t be enough ideas for a fully fledged series. With this episode, these fears also got shattered. Umibouzu is one of the arcs that take up three episodes, and this episode spends most of its time fleshing out the different involved characters. How? By showing for each of them their biggest fear, with the help of illusions. I must say, it’s a brilliant idea, and with this show, it works extremely well. The owner of the ship is up first, and his biggest fear is seeing his beloved goldfish die. Quite the interesting fellow. He himself thinks that it’s losing all his money that’s his biggest fear. Next up, the samurai. According to himself, he has no fears, though Umibouzu shows him that he’s being haunted by the countless numbers of people whom he slaughtered. At this point, people are really starting to take Umibouzu (who appeared in the form of a strange fish with a Shamisen and the voice of Norio Wakamoto) seriously, since the owner went into OTL-position, and the samurai fainted. Our lovely servant from Bake Neko, however, is up next, though she can’t really describe her biggest fears. She originally thinks that she fears not being able to get into a great relationship the most, but Umibouzu shows her that she fears being unable to give proper birth. The medicine seller manages to bring her back to her senses by convincing her that everything is an illusion, and nothing has changed in reality. The bard has quite a strange fear. Manju. Apparently, they make him vomit. ^^; The medicine seller knows quite well what his fears are: a world without a Katachi, Makoto and Kotowari. In other words, void. It’s quite logical as his biggest weapon wouldn’t work, and the beginning of the episode already hinted that his life is linked to his sword somehow. Then the episode starts focusing at the real story of the arc when it’s the monk’s turn. His biggest fear is the priest. He may be his devoted master, but he’s been acting strange ever since they went on board of the ship. It also seems that the priest was the one who changed the course of the ship, and not Umibouzu, like I first thought. The priest seems to be the centre of this mystery, and he involved everyone in his problems. 50 years ago, something strange happened on that very sea. Umibouzu then uses strange ropes of fish to pull up a huge round chamber from within the tank of the ship. Inside seems to be a human, who’s rumoured to have been in there for fifty years! I’m sure as hell anticipating the next episode, as something tells me that something really disturbing happened fifty years ago.]]>

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 30

With this episode, I’m beginning to understand this arc a bit. It’s one of these cases where the disease isn’t really triggered for anyone, so the turn of events are just what would go on if nobody did anything unpredictable. Meanwhile, the time is filled with random games, and Rika’s despair. Satoko seems to be the only one who acts differently because of it. Tis episode yet again didn’t give us any new information, it just confirmed things more. Irie indeed is doomed to die. The real villain is indeed controlling the Sonozaki-family from the shadows, and Tomitake indeed clawed himself to death, because of the disease. One interesting thing to note is that Rika said he would be killed, instead of suicide, which makes me suspect that the killer forcibly awakened the diseases in them. Something also tells me that these guys in uniforms were messing with the electricity house as a step to set off the great Hinamizawa-disaster. Still, I finally know the answer to one of the smaller questions raised in the first season: Remember when Keiichi and Shion felt that they were being watched? It turns out that they were the henchmen of the Sonozaki-family after all. It seems that they’ve been collecting information for the real killer all along. We already know that they’ve received training, so I imagine that you can only spot them if you really pay attention, which is what Satoko has been doing in this episode. Rika is also way too caught up in her own despair. Keiichi didn’t remember everything without any reason. I think that for the past arcs, she’s been trying to manipulate the wrong things. While she tried to cure the individual victims, she also could have gone after Tomitake, Takano and Irie in order to protect them. Somehow, she didn’t do that. While typing this entry, I’ve also been wondering something. Why did Irie have the cure for the disease in the third arc, and why did Rena and Mion have it in the first arc? It’s been a long while since we saw these arcs, but I can very well imagine that the culprit killed Irie because he formed too much of a threat. I also finally remembered that Irie didn’t die in every arc: he lived in the first one.]]>

Mononoke – 03

The name “Umibouzu” was rather confusing, especially with my lack of Japanese. After all, the “umi”-part could mean either sea or giving birth, and I could have sworn that “bouzu” meant little kid. Still, I was wrong. After looking up the kanji, it seems that we’re dealing with a seamonk here. Naturally, the episode again was pure awesomeness, and it has a very good chance of beating the first arc. At sea, we find ourselves a boat, carrying a strange companionship: The girl from Bake Neko, the owner of the ship, a bard, a monk, a priest, a swordsman and a medicine-seller. It’s there where Umibouzu releases its wrath on the poor ship. Here is what I believe what happened. It first makes the ship stray away from its course by placing a magnet near its compass. Then it calls its comrades, or a collection of fish ghosts to attack the ship. (I know they’re comrades, because otherwise the medicine seller would have figured out the Katachi by now).The medicine seller manages to repel them, but the fact remains that someone on the ship is hiding something. I’m putting my money on the monk. I wonder, though, do the goldfish on board have anything to do with the story? And what are the roles of the other characters? I’m looking forward to next week to find out. :)]]>

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 29

I’m not too happy to see that the fansubbers released this episode on a Saturday. While it’s nice to see that Higurashi is still getting out fast, Saturday remains my busiest day of the week, with five series that have to be blogged, and I have no intention to increase that number to six. Especially considering the time it takes to create an average Higurashi-entry. So if future releases of Higurashi will be coming out on Saturday, expect my entry of it to appear on Sunday. Anyway, about the episode: I think it’s clear now that this is the slowest arc so far. This episode focused yet again on random games, while some scenes featured Rika’s despair of getting killed again. I’m afraid to say it, but I fear that this is going to be one of the lesser arcs of the series, because it hasn’t been written by the original writers and it can’t give too much away, or else it’ll ruin the next arc as well. While the previous episode looked a lot like the first episode of the fifth arc, this episode looked a lot like the first episode of the third arc. I do hope that the next episode will focus on the Watanagashi, instead of going to the toy-store we saw in the second arc. There was only one piece of new information, so I won’t bother with a summary. But at least we now know that Rika’s partner is some kind of spirit. I’m not sure whether this girl was the same one that we see in the OP, but she seems to inhabit the same body as Rika. I do hope that the rest of the arc will be more exciting than this episode. It would, for example, be the perfect chance to show Keiichi’s past, which was left out in the sixth arc according to the people from Animesuki. I’d love to see such a tragedy in animated form.]]>

Mononoke – 02

Seriously, Mononoke is pure awesomeness. It’s such a huge shame that there are so few people who gave this series a chance. Heck, the only blog-entry I saw on Animeblogger and Animenano came from a guy who didn’t like the style. Still, that doesn’t mean that I don’t love this series, and it’s going to be fun to blog. I’ve considered following this series subbed, but thankfully the dialogue turned out to be quite easy, with my biggest obstacle being some words I don’t know, instead of the usual incredibly long sentences. It’ll also probably take ages for this thing to get fully subbed, and I’m too impatient to wait for them. Well then, for those of you who haven’t seen Bake Neko: basically all you have to know is that the medicine seller needs three things before he’s able to slay a demon: the Katachi, Makoto and Kotowari, or the name of the demon, what really is going on and the events that made the demon act the way it did. He usually has no trouble finding the Katachi due to his knowledge (in this case it’s Zasshiki Warashi), but in order to get the Makoto and Kotowari, he needs the involved persons to open up. The central person for this story is a pregnant woman, who hired a room in an inn, owned by an old woman and her servant. The previous episode showed us strange cradles, a strange kid-like creature, the sound of playing children and the death of a guy who was supposed to be after her. So, the current episode basically explained the Makoto as follows: at one point, the inn used to be a brothel. And whenever a woman turned pregnant, the owner would kill her, since there wasn’t any chance for her anymore after that. I’m not sure whether the woman mentioned above worked at the same brothel, since the timelines don’t seem to match if she did, but the fact remains that she once was a prostitute as well, who fell in love with an important person. He offered to marry her, until he found out that she already was pregnant of him. She then managed to escape, but her former near-husband sent the guy after her that we saw getting killed at the previous episode. Please correct me if I’m wrong about this one. The Japanese may be easier than usual, it’s still vital to understand as much as possible. According to this, the Kotowari should be the following: the real form of Zasshiki Warashi is these rather strange children. They are, in fact, the unborn children who were killed by the owner of the brothel, and I believe that they were just searching for another mother. They’ve waited a long time until another pregnant woman showed up, which turned out to be our blonde woman. It now makes sense why they killed the guy in the previous episode: he was threatening their “mother”. Overall, this arc gave an awesome start to Bake Neko, but I still have to say that Bake Neko was better. But then again, Bake Neko had three episodes, compared to the two episodes of this episode. I’ve read somewhere that this series will feature 13 episodes, divided into five arcs. If this is true, and I had to guess, then the next arc will be another two-episoded one, after which the final three arcs will consist of three episodes. Ayakashi ~ Japanese Classic Horror already showed that the creators like to save the best for last, so I’m really excited to see the rest of this series.]]>

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 28

If you’re wondering why I haven’t picked up any new series apart from Higurashi for the Summer season, then don’t worry. The really good stuff just airs relatively late for this season. I’m definitely going to blog Mononoke and Baccano!, with Miyori no Mori as a wildcard. The other good series may have been good, but they didn’t seem worth blogging. Especially since my blogging-list already is huge. If there ever was a polar opposite of the previous episode, it’d be this one. It seems that the previous episode wasn’t the seventh arc at all, it was just an epilogue of the sixth arc. It’s too bad, because I would have loved to see more attention spent on it. The people who watch Higurashi because of the “killer lolis” probably disagree, but now that I think back at the episode, I really liked it, especially the flashback Rena had, at the end of the episode. So this episode was the obligatory introduction-episode of the real seventh arc, original to the anime. Since most of the episode looked a lot like the first half of episode 22, I won’t be giving a summary. But there were still lots of interesting details in this episode. But first I wanted to talk about the new animation, which definitely is different from the first season, and it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. The budget has really increased for this show, and it shows. Chie-sensei finally looks different from a blue-haired Rena-clone, and overall, the characters look more detailed than before. This should make the scenes with the distorted faces more bearable. On the other hand, this episode had more distorted chibi-figures than the entire first season combined. This just doesn’t work, and it distracts from the ‘feel’ that the first series established. These drawings look really out of place, and I hope they’re limited to the comedic moments. The main character for this arc: Rika! I suspect that the missing plot-holes that the first series left (like the rather major event that happened in Keiichi’s past for example), the remaining TIPS will be revealed, and hints will be given for the eighth arc. I’ll also refrain from reading any more TIPS from now on, because of this. One question this episode really asked was the following: to what extend do the different arcs influence each other. The fact remains that Keiichi has become closer to his friends with every successive episode. This could be because of pure luck, but I’m really beginning to think that he subconsciously remembers the fun times he had with them. In this episode, for example, Satoko came with a line that Keiichi used in the previous arc. The thing that will distinguish this arc from all others starts with Satoshi, who asked Shion to take care of Satoko. The question now remains: what happened? It’s been a bit too long since I saw the fifth arc, but if I had to guess then it seems that Shion’s feelings for Satoko are different for the different arcs, and may be one of the reasons of why they turn out so differently as well. In the first and sixth arc, she was completely absent, suggesting that she decided to forget Satoshi. A similar thing happened in the third arc, but she then ran into Keiichi for the sports-tournament (the tournament was a baseball-tournament, wasn’t it? I suddenly realize she became manager because of Satoshi$, and she decided not to blame Satoko. For arc 2 and 5 she went berserk, and blamed Satoko for Satoshi’s suffering. In the sixth arc, she actually listened to Satoshi’s request, and she was willing to change her entire life for it. The big question now remains: up to what extend was the disease responsible for this? The syringe also makes another appearance in this episode. By now, we’ve already established that it’s used to cure the disease, but it remains interesting to wonder why Satoko is using it. The third arc showed that Satoko also suffers from the disease, and Keiichi awakened that one early during that time. I think that this is another sign that Rika is trying ut random things. I suspect she somehow tricked Satoko into taking the cure for the disease, to see what happens. I’ve also been wondering about the two Rikas. Are there really two people living in her body, one grown up and one little girl? Or is the little girl-Rika just an act of the grown-up one. I suspect it’s the latter. The times in which we saw Rika in “Oyashiro-sama”-mode she probably stopped caring about hiding her cute self. At one point in this episode, we also see her drink a glass of alcohol, which seems to enforce this theory. In any case, I wonder who it will be, where the disease activates too early. Every arc so far has had three main characters, one infected by the disease, one major character who isn’t affected by the disease, and tries to help the former, and a major side-character, who provides a bit of background information on the story (at least, that’s been the general pattern I discovered, with a bit of imagination). Arc 1 had Keiichi, Rena and Oishi, Arc 2 had Shion, Keiichi and Oishi again. Arc 3 had Satoko, Keiichi and Irie, arc 4 had Rika, Sakisaka and Oishi (okay, not exactly, but you get the idea), arc 5 had Shion, Mion and either Satoshi or Mion’s grandmother, arc 6 had Rena, Keiichi and Takano. For arc 7, the supporting character will be Rika, the main character for this arc. We should probably get our first clues about the diseased character and the major side-character in the next episode.]]>

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni – 27

So, basically because in Higurashi, every single detail counts, and the subs come out at bullet speed anyway, I’m going to continue to follow this series subbed instead of raw. And boy, does it deliver! Only Mononoke will probably be able to stand a chance of beating this series for the title of the best show of the summer-season. So, basically, the current arc is the aftermath of the sixth arc, and meant to give the final clues, before the eighth arc will reveal everything. It does this by means of the hints that were given in the game, and translated in the AnimeSuki forums. I only read a few of the hints back when the series aired, so it’s going to be great to see them all lined up. And the creators couldn’t have chosen a better and more awesome setting for this arc: 30 years in the future, with as main characters Oishi, Akasaka and a grown-up Rena!! I’m also really curious as to how long this arc will be, and what will be its climax? Anyway, let’s start with the new OP, as it reveals quite a bit of information. It’s sad, instead of chaotic like the one for the first season. There are two things that immediately catch your mind: a strange girl, and the huge focus on Rika. Keep an eye out for this mysterious girl, because (having read one or two hints about her), something tells me that she’s playing a huge central role in this series. I’m also really glad to see that it seems like Rika will become the main character of the second season, when compared to Keiichi in the first one. Especially considering she’s my favourite character. The episode starts with Akisaka with a guy who once was in charge of overseeing Hinamizawa, meeting up with Oishi in the bus stop that we all know so well. Hinamizawa is in ruins, and the disaster indeed happened after episode 26. Akisaka recaps a few things that happened in the fourth arc, after which he introduces Sawada (at least, I think he’s spelled that way. The fansubber refused to translate his name). Sawada now works for the self defence-force after he left Hinamizawa, and he used to be an underclassman of Akisaka when they were in college. The fansubber also for some reason translated “Onigafuchi” to “Onigahuchi”, but I’ll keep with Onigafuchi in my future entries. It’s probably a translation-error anyways. In Onigafuchi, which has now been covered in concrete, and the ruins of the hospital Akisaka tells about his theories, backed up by online bloggers (this probably is the first time an anime referred to bloggers in any way ^^;). It basically starts out with a summary of the information we already knew at the sixth arc, when Rena received Takano’s scrapbooks. His conclusion, in any case, is something we’ve been expecting all along: gas never erupted from the march in the first place. According to various people, it’s useless to seal up a gas leak with concrete. According to him, the three great families got in trouble when the original virus began to decline, so they tried to remake it. This failed, and it either killed the entire village, or it made the villagers kill themselves. The alien-part has to be fake, of course. It also seems that the Self Defence Force knew somehow what was going on. They put up fences around the Onigafuchi-march, and frequently took blood-samples from their members for investigation. The question remains: if they knew, why didn’t they do something about it? They then go towards the olds school-building, in order to meet with another familiar face: Rena. Oishi then starts asking her a few questions, since he’s the only one that met her before. It really seems that she suffered serious traumas after the disasters in Hinamizawa (by the way, I’d love to find out how both she and Keiichi in the third arc decided to live the rest of their lives). Oishi then comes with some more facts: after we saw Rika claim that she finally wanted to become serious against the person that played the “endless game of June” with her, Irie committed suicide with poison, she again got killed and at dawn, the disaster took place. Rena was also hospitalized for a long time afterwards. Oishi also has the theory that she was brainwashed when she was there. Rena then talks of one of the hints that I vaguely read once. Remember when Rena was hiding in the bus? Rika in “Oyashiro-mode” then visited Rena, in an attempt to save her. When Rena, however, became scared of her and yelled at her, Rika claimed that she had no more interest in the village, and that she wanted to move on to another one. This makes Akisaka remember the time he was with Rika as well. Okay, so let’s combine these facts a bit. The fact does remain that it’s a bit too coincidental that Rena picked the exact evening to carry out her plan, right before the disaster occurred. This seems to suggest that someone was able to control the disaster, which suggests that information was about to become known that was not meant to come out. Still, if that’s the case, then why was Rena the only one to survive? I can imagine that Keiichi would have survived in the third arc. He was unconscious and away from everyone, which means that he wasn’t exposed to the virus in any way. For Rena, though, this is different. My theory is that Rena was one of the first people to be infected. Because of that, she also was one of the first to stand a chance of being cured. Notice the syringe Rika is holding in the flashback? Rika actually wanted to cure her, but Rena refused. Instead, Keiichi managed to cure her, in the same reason that Rena tried to cure Keiichi with in the first arc. It was only then that Rika realized that the virus could also be cured in a different way. Unfortunately, the realized this too late and got killed before she could take action. This suggests why the eighth arc is going to reveal everything: it’s because Rika will finally get serious. I also assume that Rika was the one who cured Rena back in the first arc, in an attempt to get her to save Keiichi, but this failed, and after this she kept quiet for a long while, until Shion went crazy in the fifth arc. I also finally realize why Rika was able to predict her death so accurately: she already had lived the same timeline over and over again. Of course she’d get a bit sick of the same things happening again and again. Going back to the disaster of Hinamizawa, I think that is the time that a certain someone awakened the virus in the entire population of Hinamizawa, and they began to kill each other. The reason Keiichi went crazy in the first arc was because of the weapon Rena showed him (probably under light influence of the virus, after which Rika probably came to her), which awakened the virus too early. The same can probably be said for Satoko when Keiichi petted her in the third arc, Shion losing her fingernails in the fifth arc and Rena getting Takano’s scrapbooks in the sixth arc. The question remains: what does Rika’s little friend have to do with this? And where does Takano fit in this story? Why did Irie commit suicide? And are there possibly two Rikas?]]>

Ghost Hunt Review – 74/100

Ghost Hunt is an arc-based anime, focusing on a group of people who exorcise haunted buildings, like mansions, houses and school-buildings. Every arc ranges from one to four episodes, in which some kind of supernatural being has to be taken care of, sometimes resulting in rather bloody scenes. The series clearly did its homework, as it’s able to present the viewer with complex cases, and if offers some quite complex ghosts and exorcism rituals. Interesting premise, but does it deliver? First, let me say that the best episode of the series is arguably episode five. It’s a masterpiece of fast pacing, tension and great characters. After that, the anime tries, but it never quite manages to reach the same heights of that fifth episode. This is mostly due to the main character of this series: Mai. She’s a normal schoolgirl, who gets recruited for the group in order to handle some of the smaller tasks, like paperwork, fetching coffee, installing cameras, etc. Mai’s character is quite useless throughout a major part of the anime, apart from some prophetic dreams she has, perhaps. All she does is wander around, talk to people, get scared, and let others do the dangerous work. It’s such a pity, as her character works best when she’s actually in danger and has to fight for herself. But when she keeps getting saved by others, the fun quickly dies. Only two arcs bring an exception to this: the second and the final arc. Because of that, these two arcs showcase the best of the series, and possibly the only arcs which I really enjoyed. Ghost Hunt also messes up its side-characters a bit. They work good on paperwork, but they aren’t just used to their full extend. In one particular arc, some of them also end up baking cakes, in order to conveniently have them out of the scene for a bit. Attempts are given to give them a bit of background, but apart from one case, these backgrounds are never finished. Speaking of finishing, a lot of questions also are left unanswered after the final episode. In terms of graphics and music, however, this series shines. Character-designs are crisp and detailed, the use of CG is brilliant and the animation is very acceptable. (Someone also noted that the different characters end up wearing something different for each single day.) The OP and ED are definitely something to remember, some of the monsters and ghosts look very creepy, while the music fits the tension-full series perfectly. And I could go on for a while longer. About the question whether this anime was worth watching, well, it is. The second arc, the final arc and also the small fifth arc were definitely enjoyable. The other arcs were just decent stories, nothing special.]]>

Ghost Hunt – 25

Image Uploaded by ImageShack Toolbar Image Uploaded by ImageShack ToolbarImage Uploaded by ImageShack Toolbar Short Synopsis: The end of Ghost Hunt. Naru wakes up, his secret is revealed, and the case gets solved. Good: Matsuzaki was in her element. Bad: A few important questions remain unanswered. Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 You know, for a Ghost Hunt-episode, this wasn’t such a bad one. I quite enjoyed it, actually. Especially Matsuzaki was great to watch. There were a nice amount of climaxes, all of them were worthwhile to see. I also liked how this episode didn’t go into the “worst case scenario” as well, and chose the most natural solution instead. Still. Leaving the last part of a manga you’re based on out never is a good idea. xxxHolic was the only anime so far who left an acceptable result, but the fact remains that Ghost Hunt did leave a number of unanswered questions behind. First of all, Naru’s parents. While it’s nearly obvious that it’s that professor, I’d like to see it actually confirmed. I was glad to see that Matsuzaki’s story felt the most complete after this episode, and therefore, it’s my favourite. Bou-san could have used a bit more explanation why he ended up in both a rock-band and a monk as well. For Mai’s case, we still don’t know how she got her powers, and why it’s Naru that always appears in her dreams. John doesn’t have any background at all, while we still don’t know why Naru is so incredibly friendly towards Masako. Overall, this could have been done much better, so I’m hoping for some kind of OVA to finish all these stories that were left in the final two books who haven’t been animated yet. But that probably won’t happen. Overall, I expected a lot from Ghost Hunt, but overall, it rather disappointed. Episode five was awesome, but I still have yet to encounter an episode that managed to beat it. It would have been better if a bit more emphasis was put on the side-characters. That’s why I liked this final arc: because it put one of the main characters out of commission for half of its airtime.]]>